Rape survivor assaulted by TSA, ends up in ER

Hey, folks, you might want to go over and read this at the other place:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chec...ate/1374235-pat-down-ended-my-wife-up-er.html

I can't comment over there yet - I still have to find the time to set up a new handle from a different IP - but wish some of you would.

How will the Boob handle this one?

 

Probably like his superiors, play like they are unaware. May be more truth there than I would like!

 

Sorry, I refuse to post there. The moderators have been so abusive to their membership while sucking up to TSA that they are not worth the time of day.

Invite him to participate here, where my advice awaits:

What would have the most impact at the moment is a friend-of-the-court brief in EPIC's lawsuit to force TSA to comply with the legal requirements and court order for public comments regarding the body scanners. His wife's situation is a powerful example of how TSA's strip-search, grope & poke program has run amok. The judge has approved the filing of friend-of-the-court briefs in this case, so this is an excellent opportunity to document such a violation in the public record.

 

By ignoring it and furiously pushing it down with a flood of stories on how "heroic" some smurf was by saving a puppy from eating a donut.

 

Alright, time for more correspondence to those sniveling pieces of (expletive deleted) Durbin, Kirk and Schakowsky. Can't wait to hear from Schakoward about how this is "not evidence of abuse." God I hope she loses her (expletive deleted) job this November. Goddamn TSA-sympathizing prokaryote.

 

Hey hey!
prokaryote-or bacteria CAN be good, there are good bacteria out there. Don't insult them all in one lump!

 

True, I stand corrected.

*ahem*

Filovirus.

 

Oh God.

Part of me wishes I hadn't even read this, because of the painful emotions the story is stirring within me.

I too am a rape survivor, and I too feel physically ill every time I've been groped by the TSA. Even when they've been comparatively benign (as in, the screener didn't actually touch my genitals), it still felt like an assault. That's because, as a survivor of rape, it is imperative to me that I get to choose who touches me in an intimate manner...and regardless of whether they make contact with my sex organs or not, a TSA pat-down is a very intrusive, intimate form of body contact by a stranger.

And of course the times they've actually touched my genitals have been indescribably worse. I still get shaky when I recall the TSA supervisor in OKC who rubbed her hand across my pubis, pressing in on it until I actually felt it on my clitoris. Or the brutal one-striper who rammed her hand up into my crotch, with her thumb pointed up so that it actually went between my labia and slightly penetrated my vagina through my thin leggings.

I feel ill even writing that out. But I will continue to do so, just to remind the world what was done to me.

I'm sickened over this. Truly sickened. I have no words yet...I need to wait a while, as anything I would say right now would be unprintable.

I don't participate in "that place" anymore - I got banned from the TS/S forum back when I publicly called out Ronnie-boy on his sociopathic cruelty. I will never understand why they let that man spew such blatantly vile hatred and sickness, while we victims are prevented from objecting to it or calling it like it is. But somebody needs to go in there and set "peachfront" straight. That is some of the worst blame-the-victim (expletive deleted) I've seen in a long while, and it angers me even more to see direct evidence of all the sheeple who truly think it's unreasonable for us to not want strangers to touch our bodies intimately.

 

​

At a travel chat forum called FlyerTalk, a member named “brennandunn” has posted a thread detailing his and his wife’s experience at the hands of the TSA in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
He states that his wife is a survivor of sexual assault, an assault where she was threatened with death. I think I’ll let him tell the story:

Five years ago, she was violently sexually assaulted by three men and was threatened with death. She made it, and tried to bury it for three years. After nightmares, flashbacks, and cutting she told me everything two years ago, and since then has been seeing professional counseling and taking medication. The incident happened in FL, but we now live elsewhere. We were back in FL due to a death in the family – whenever we’re there, she’s always on edge (understandably). The security checkpoint had a backscatter and a metal detector active. I always opt-out, and unfortunately I was chosen to go through the metal detector instead of her. My wife was sent towards the backscatter, and told the TSO she didn’t want to go through that. I then overheard the TSO graphically describing that “they will need to touch your privates…” (I know TSOs routinely scare people into going through the nude-o-scopes.) That just about did it for my wife, and she started shaking, sweating, and ended up going through the backscatter.​

But as many of us know and have been trying to tell people for years, just because you go through the scanner doesn’t mean that you won’t also be groped. That’s what happened here. The TSA deployed its magic word — “anomaly” — and demanded that the woman be pawed.

And then they discovered an “anomaly” in her bra, so she needed to be patted down on her breasts. This freaked her out even more. She asked for a private room and for me to be there, and it was obvious that this pissed off the female assist TSO. As she started shaking and sobbing in the room as the TSO began to touch her breasts, I gently touched her arm. Big mistake – the TSO yelled that I couldn’t touch her and that I’d need to go through screening again.​

You see, showing compassion isn’t allowed. Touching your loved one as reassurance isn’t allowed. As this boy’s parents discovered, as this girl’s mother discovered, as this girl’s parents discovered.
And as countless other sexual assault survivors have discovered as well.
You can read the rest of the account at the link.
I will ask again the questions I have been asking for two years: why are people putting up with this? Why is this country putting up with this? Why are people who aren’t forced to fly still flying? And why are so many people, including journalists and politicians, making excuses for the abuse the TSA is perpetrating?
I’m still waiting for answers.
(Photo: addictinginfo.org)

 

Let's be careful folks. I know her husband posted details of the lady's trauma in a public forum, but she did not. My hunch is she is not into publicity. Let's give her whatever space she needs.

In the culture I grew up in women didn't have to explain why we didn't want intimate physical contact with strangers. We had the right to choose who would touch us, when they would touch us and how. Again, no one questioned that we had that right. No one challenged us or demanded to know why we didn't feel like having our genitals and breasts pawed by a particular person at a particular time or place. If we hope to return those boundaries to our culture, the best way forward is to respect people's boundaries ourselves.

This lady is entitled to her privacy. We can't use her pain to further our cause. She was hospitalized for Christ's sake!

 

Bacteriophage.

 

Did up a quickie letter to send to my legisleeches tomorrow.

Not sure whether to include the TSA News Blog post or the post from the linked web forum. I'm leaning toward the forum post since it's most direct from the source - I might just add in a reference link to the TSA News Blog article for further verification.

I have no illusions about my elected snivelers wanting to do anything to help, but at least we can force information upon them and rob them of the ability to claim ignorance. If they want to stand around idly after that they'll have to swallow the pill of being apathetic or even malicious.

 

Nobody has compromised her privacy. She's still anonymous. Her husband published this account. Her husband, anonymously. I merely reposted his words verbatim.

 

RT.com has picked up the story:

TSA harassment sends rape victim to emergency room


It will be good if stories like this get wider circulation, too bad we have to rely on the ex-commies for realistic reporting of this stuff.

 

Comment from the article Mike posted:

Damn right! Those Ossifers at the airport meeting "Resistance" are doin' it for truth, justice, and the 'Merican way. Makes me wanna snap on a pair of blue gloves and hum "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"

/sorry you feel you had an unpleasant screening experience/
/we all wish we didn't have to go through security/
/our officers followed procedures/
/post 9-11 world/

 

Do we just pick one? I think he will try to work in all four of those lame phrases, plus denying that it ever happened!

 

Forbe’s is basically calling the husband a liar in the Gallup story and implying the story could be a fabrication.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed...gallup-poll-people-think-tsa-does-a-good-job/

 

So this is old, but I received a response from Durbin on it and for whatever reason it kinda blew a fuse in my head. I'm pissed.

Here's the reply he sent me: Page 1. Page 2.

Notice anything funny about those scans? Like the date? Yeah, it's from last year. Doesn't goddamn matter, though, because he sent the same useless form letter. So I'm taking the advice of...I can't remember who it was that suggested it (someone on some other frequent-flyer forum I think), and sending the form letter back to him along with the original correspondence and the following nastygram:

I'm going to sleep on it in case I'm biting his head off in an unwarranted fashion, but I figured I'd make this public knowledge just in case it helps someone in some way.

I think I'm going to extend my strict anti-incumbent voting policy to the next 3 elections. Seems like the only sure thing anymore is that everyone in office now is an incompetent chucklefuck not deserving of even a toilet-scrubber's salary.

 

Menendez of NJ sends the same letter year after year after year. It took him over 1 year to remove a phrase about proposed, but long-dead, legislation to bring the TSA under some sort of control (or maybe it was some passengers' rights legislation). He totally ignores correspondence pointing out that I have received the same letter from him multiple times - even when I am nice about it.

I say send your response.

 

Oh for (expletive deleted)'s sake.

I just received a reply from Schakowsky about this.

"Our office has initiated a Congressional Inquiry with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on your behalf. Enclosed please find a copy of the letter sent to the Congressional Unit of the TSA. Once we receive any word, we will forward their response to you immediately."

Oh huzzah!

Oh wait.

Letter goes...

*sigh*

They take a month to reply and when they do, they mistake it for something that happened to me?

I'm not even married. What the actual (expletive deleted) is this.

So now am I going to jail for misrepresenting myself to a Member of Congress or what?